About Oxford Instruments
Global company and leading provider of high technology tools and systems for industry and research.
- The first commercial spin-out company from Oxford University
- 25 locations worldwide
- Revenue 2008/09 £92.8 million
- Over 1,250 employees worldwide
Project Summary
In 2005, Oxford Instruments needed to find a more efficient way of recording and reporting accidents, documenting and sharing risk assessment results and collating all COSHH data sheets and assessments. Rivo provided Oxford Instruments with a system to manage accidents, incidents, Risk Assessments, DSE and COSHH. Features include comprehensive reporting functionality, action tracking and automated email escalation.
Awards / Standards Achieved
- Two of the Group’s major sites are now certified to the OHSAS18001 H&S Management System standard.
Business Needs
Oxford Instruments needed to improve the management of Health & Safety across all locations and appointed Paul Carton of Resolve Consulting to review this project. This involved a detailed assessment of Health & Safety requirements and the selection of a Health & Safety management system to match their existing processes and the organisational structure. Gap analysis identified a number of key areas of focus including Oxford Instruments’ inconsistent methods for assessing risks, difficulties in tracking actions and poor accessibility of information and data.
Benefits
OHSAS 18001 Certification
The introduction of Rivo’s Safeguard system at Oxford Instruments proved to be a significant factor in their achievement of OHSAS 18001 at their High Wycombe site as it enables organisations to control Health & Safety risks and improve performance. According to Paul Carton, Safeguard provided a number of benefits including:
- Trending and analysis of data: Information and data held within Safeguard allows accident, incident and near miss data to be easily analysed. Adverse trends are quickly identified to put in place appropriate preventive/corrective actions.
- Effective management of actions: Actions are properly assigned and regular e-mail reminders ensure that actions receive the attention of staff. Reporting mechanisms help management to prioritise and monitor actions.
- Sharing best practices: The Risk Assessment module ensures that hazards are effectively communicated throughout the business, along with associated control measures.
- Significant savings in manpower: The DSE module alone saved Oxford Instruments significant time with an integrated self-assessment template, reporting and analysis tools.
The independent auditor evaluating Oxford Instruments against OHSAS 18001 requirements, praised Safeguard as a means of enabling good management of safety related data:
“Rivo’s Health & Safety Management system is an excellent tool in providing a very user friendly and structured monitoring and records tool for the business. It is commendable in providing a detailed framework to support and manage various documentation issues enabling the good management of safety related data.”
and commented specifically about the DSE module:
“Safeguard’s DSE Module is an excellent way of managing the on-line DSE assessments.”
Return on Investment
Oxford Instrument’s Group Health & Safety Manager can instantly view the status of compliance at all locations, analyse business critical information with ease and present this for management review. KPI’s and objectives can be now be easily reported and executive reports that were previously time consuming involving multiple locations of information and sets of data can now be produced instantly.
This white paper details the measurable financial benefits delivered to Rivo’s clients through the implementation of Safeguard.
